The use of segmental retaining walls that include dry-stacked concrete block units
as the facia system together with extensible sheets of polymeric materials (geosynthetics)
that internally reinforce the retained soils and anchor the facia has gainedwide popularity
in North America (Bathurst and Simac 1994). These structures have also been
reported in Europe, Scandinavia and Australia in recent years (Cazzuffi and Rimoldi
1994; Gourc et al. 1990; Knutson 1990; Won 1994). An example of a reinforced segmental
retaining wall structure is illustrated in Figure 1. The distinguishing feature of
these structures is the facing column that is constructed using mortarless modular concrete
block units that are stacked to form a wall batter into the retained soils (typically
3 to 15_ from vertical). The economic benefits of these systems over conventional reinforced
concrete gravity wall structures andmechanically stabilized soil retaining walls
that use inextensible (steel) reinforcement and select backfills have been demonstrated
in several of the references cited in an earlier paper by Bathurst and Simac (1994).